First Look At James McAvoy In ‘Welcome To The Punch’

First Look At James McAvoy In 'Welcome To The Punch'

After playing an earnest lawyer in “The Conspirator,” the noble hero Charles Xavier in “X-Men: First Class” and the squeaky voice protagonist of “Arthur Christmas,” James McAvoy is getting some dirt under his fingernails. He’s got Danny Boyle‘s “Trance” in the pipeline (though it won’t arrive until 2013 as the director is busy with his London Olympics duties), he’s currently filming the adaptation of Irvine Welsh‘s “Filth” and in the can is “Welcome to the Punch.” And it promises to be explosive.

Screen Daily have a feature on the film, and have unveiled the first look at the film in the process (the image both looks awesome, yet kind of like an ad for cologne), but if anything, this thing is going to be packed to the gills with action. “In terms of challenges, the first two weeks were very action heavy. Squibs were going off everywhere. The first day on set was a huge action scene. A whole side of a hotel wall was blown out by gunfire,” said director Eran Creevy about the film that is his biggest yet. “If we’d done it wrong we would have had to reset the wall, put all the squibs back in and done a two-hour reset, pushing us behind from day one. You have to grab the bull by the horns. And thankfully many times luck was on our side.”

Based on his Brit List script, the story follows an ex-criminal who is forced to return to London from his Icelandic hideaway when his son is involved in a heist gone wrong. This gives a dogged detective one last chance to catch the man he’s always been after. And could the film be on it’s way to SXSW? Nothing official yet, but earlier this month Creevy tweeted, “Date to deliver film: 3rd of March. Date girlfriend due to deliver baby: 2nd of March. Oh that’s what that constant feeling of angst is.” The festival starts on March 9th, just saying. But either way, the journey to get a final cut has been an intense one for the helmer.

“The edit has been intense,” Creevy says. “For six weeks it was just me and my editor Chris Gill in the room, and now it’s Ridley Scott [executive producing via his Scott Free London shingle], Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Stuart Ford, Xavier Marchand, Robert Walak all having an input… all these guys have invested a lot. Some days I’m in love with the film, some days I hate it. But that’s normal.”

Either way, we’re pumped to see what comes out as a result. No release dates yet, but keep your fingers crossed for Austin.